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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28139391">Alms for Oblivion</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppetawoppet/pseuds/poppetawoppet'>poppetawoppet</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Future Fic, Gen, Light Angst, Not completely canon compliant, as it predicts something that may not happen, ish, mentions of Toby</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:28:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,254</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28139391</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppetawoppet/pseuds/poppetawoppet</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The request was "I loved the last book and had a hard time figuring out who to ask for so I think I'm going to go with the Luidaeg as her story and family is at the center of everything. I'd love her perspective and thoughts on changes, what's she's seen or even wonderful lighter moments with the new generation of Fae that's she's been leaving a mark on. Please include anyone that you'd like since she lives at the center of a lovely big world of people who care. I also really love the various teens; Quentin, Raj, Dean, Chelsea and have requested them previous years so would love to see them if they fit."</p><p>I somehow ended up writing the Luidaeg and her thoughts on being the Lady of the Lake, Quentin finding Excalibur, and what it may mean. I hope you like it, as I've not written in this fandom before, but I love the characters a whole lot!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Alms for Oblivion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiKate/gifts">FiKate</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>title from Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida Act III, sc 3, l 145</p><p>"Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back<br/>Wherin he puts alms for oblivion,<br/>A great sized monster of ingratitudes:<br/>These scraps are good deeds past,<br/>which are devour'd as fast as they are made,<br/>forgot as soon as done."</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Most call me the Luidaeg. I cannot lie.</p><p>When someone has lived as long as I have, they don’t really count days anymore.  Moments, yes, but never days.</p><p>There are many moments I wish I could forget. And others that tease the edge of my memory, a faint light across the dark and distant sea.</p><p>I often find myself around rag-tags and runaways, the lost children of Faerie. (I sought out October, but she brought along her own gaggle, and they somehow also attached to me.)</p><p>I was not expecting to see any of that small found family that adopted me as their weird, terrifying, and indulgent aunt. So of course one of them came today.</p><p>(I’m rude to people on purpose. It reminds them I am not someone to trifle with, and it deters most of those questing for greatness, but too afraid to pay my price.)</p><p>“What?” I snarled as I opened the door.</p><p>Quentin grinned at me and held out a take out bag. I looked around him.</p><p>“Toby let you out on your own?”</p><p>“Sort of? I asked her to drop me off here while she and Tybalt did some dinner/court/wedding thing for like an hour, and I thought I’d bring you fish tacos!”</p><p>Quentin is the most dangerous of Toby’s little family, right after Toby that is. She doesn’t know any better when it comes to me. Quentin, however, he does not see me as a threat.</p><p>I may love him for that.</p><p>It may kill him one day.</p><p>“Come on in.”</p><p>I didn’t bother to put up my normal illusions. Quentin knew what my place was really like, and I wasn’t up to the effort.</p><p>“I was just going through some things in storage. We can eat in there and maybe I can find something interesting.”</p><p>I took the bag and led him down a hallway that wasn’t always there, to a room that only existed in the Summerlands. I could hear Quentin stop in the doorway, and imagined his eyes were as big as saucers.</p><p>My storage room is quite large, after all.</p><p>I walked over to where two crates were close enough together for chairs. Quentin dutifully pulled over another for a table.</p><p>“You have a lot of things,” he said.</p><p>“I’ve lived a lot of years.”</p><p>We ate fish tacos, and talked about inconsequential things I really don’t remember. I knew they were good things, and happy, because I remember laughing. The details don’t matter. Only the memories of the moment.</p><p>“Were you looking for anything specific?” Quentin asked.</p><p>“Not really,” I said. “I just had the feeling of finding something today.</p><p>(This was the whole objective truth. I have enough gift of the Sight to know when to listen, and today I was supposed to find something.)</p><p>“Why don’t you go wander and find something. I’ll tell you what i remember of how I got it.”</p><p>“Okay. That sounds cool.” Quentin paused. “Anything I find?”</p><p>“Anything.”</p><p>He grinned and disappeared into a stack of crates. I didn’t ask him to look out of any kindness. I had been looking for something all day before he arrived. Perhaps he was meant to find what I was looking for.</p><p>I don’t know how long it was before I heard a happy gasp, only that it rang clearly through the endless room, like a bell marking an hour, a reminder that this moment was important.</p><p>He came from behind me, a blessing I did not know, for had I seen what was in his hands, I may have recoiled and thrown him out.</p><p>“This is an amazing sword, Luidaeg!” He said, sitting down with the weapon in his hands. “It’s balanced almost perfectly, and the runes are unlike anything I’ve seen.”</p><p>I only have one sword that I remember. I swallowed, and held out my hands. “Let me see.”</p><p>He placed it gently in my hands, and it was exactly what I feared.</p><p>I smelled the lake, clear and cold, and not the sea I commanded with all my breaths. It was so long ago, but I remember the determination in the boy’s eyes, and the set of his shoulders as I handed him the sword. I could taste the blood and fire that came with the sword, the end of an old ally, the beginning of a myth, the anticipation of new things to come.</p><p>“I haven’t seen this sword in many years,” I said. “Did you know that they once called me the Lady of the Lake?”</p><p>Quentin nodded, “Toby told me once, I think. Wait. Wait just a second. Is that <i> Excalibur??</i>”</p><p>I smiled. Even in Faerie, the tale of Camelot has been passed down with a certain amount of awe and reverence. Mostly for Merlin, as he was once one of us, in a way. But a legendary sword is a legendary sword.</p><p>“Yes. This is the sword they called Excalibur. I gave it to a boy named Arthur and he was once a king.”</p><p>“But where did you get it? And how did it come back to you?”</p><p>“I don’t remember when I got it, only that I had it when I needed to give it. As to when I got it back?”</p><p>I closed my eyes. “Galahad had carried the sword for some time, and his descendants as well. The sword could be given freely. I had given it to Arthur. Arthur had passed the sword to him, and him to his children. I remember the moment it came back to me, centuries after Camelot was only a story to tell children. It was caked in mud, and looked old with rust, and dents. It was payment for question, and I had asked for the girl’s legacy. She handed me the sword. I didn’t even recognize her as one of the line. Perhaps she wasn’t. Perhaps she had found it, and wasn’t it’s rightful keeper. Either way, it came to me, and out of curiosity, I washed it clean. Once I had, it sang again, and I knew what it was. I put it away.”</p><p>I placed the sword on the crate between us. “That was many years ago.”</p><p>Quentin smiled, happily, and without any doubt in what I had said. </p><p>“What happens to it now that you have it again?”</p><p>“Perhaps it only wanted to remind me it was here. Perhaps I may give it away again. Perhaps it belongs to someone who will retrieve it. And perhaps it is just a sword in a roomful of things from my past, and you just happened to find it.”</p><p>Quentin nodded, and stood up. “This was really cool, Luidaeg. It’s probably been about an hour, right?”</p><p>I nodded.</p><p>“Toby’ll be back soon, so I better go wait outside.” </p><p>“You do that. Open roads.”</p><p>“Kind fires.” </p><p>He took one last look at the sword, smiled again, and left.</p><p>I let out a breath.</p><p>See, the sword can be given. But it also can be found. The story of the stone isn’t truly Arthur’s, but an older one of the sword itself. I had buried the sword in this room quite well. Quentin found it in mere moments.</p><p>This sword and a future king had implications I did not want to think of. Not yet. Not this boy. I would not forget this moment. Nor the sword. After all, it was his sword now. I just hadn’t told him yet.</p><p>I cannot lie, but I do not always tell the truth.</p>
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